Thanks to bigas, my MBA is still alive!

[elbert]

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Last Sunday night, my wife was playing with Harry,our makulit Jack Russell Terrier. It was a simple game that involved him chasing after his favorite rubber ball.

Well, that rubber ball managed to hit the glass that was beside me, spilling the water that was in it all over my MacBook Air's keyboard. Talk about perfect trajectory!

My immediate reaction was to immediately pull the MagSafe off and zap all the power out via shift, ctrl, option and power button.

I wanted to open up the unit but I realized that I didn't have my torx screwdriver set at home, so I was left to finding other means to dry up the unit.

First step was to turn the unit over and shake off all the water. I then pounded the keyboard area on my bed repeatedly, to further remove water that seeped under the keys. I then got my trusty 3M high performance cloth and rubbed on the keyboard while the MBA was upside down. As i didn't have time to setup my vacuum cleaner, I took out the blowdryer, set it to minimal heat, but flu speed, and pointed it at the keyboard. sideways.

Thinking that I probably did enough, I switched the unit on to test it. That was the impatience in me that took over, as I should've kept it off until certain it was 100% dry. Well, it seemed to work fine until 10 minutes later, when I noticed my trackpad couldn't control the pointer properly. The pointer was jumping all over the screen!

Again, I immediately did the shift, ctrl, option and power button.

I then got the box of my MBA, filled it up with uncooked rice (bigas) and buried my MBA in it. I kept the lid in closed position, as I didn't want any of the fine gain to get into the keyboard.

60 hours later came the moment of truth. I opened the box, pulled the MBA out and brushed off all the bigas that were clinging on to the crevices.

I switched the unit on and was relieved to find it running like normal.

I'm now posting from my MBA.

Phew!

At this point, I don't think I'l be bringing this to the service center for inspection. It'll serve no purpose at this point.

[vgsison]

Very interesting read. Question though, what did the rice do to your MBA which made it dry?

[Netskipper]

Rice is basically a desiccant. It absorbed the moisture from the MBA. He could have also used Silica Gel but I'm sure that that was not immediately available at the time.

[audionookie]

Nice to know sir that it worked!

[LeoCastillo]

Good job! Glad you had it working.

Having said that, I worry that the moisture sensors might have registered and may be an issue when claiming warranty/AppleCare later. What do you think?

Leo

[elbert]

I will eventually bring it in to the service to check if the wetness indicators were triggered. I hope not. I bought ACPP for this unit and it's barely a year old now!

[teachertwish]

Sounds like a great Lifehacker article contribution right here. Thanks for the tip!

[bisdak]

Rice is basically a desiccant. It absorbed the moisture from the MBA. He could have also used Silica Gel but I'm sure that that was not immediately available at the time.

So just in case, and hoping it won't, happen to my MBA, to the dry cabinet it will go along with the cameras and lenses. :-)

Pwede rin ba ibilad sa araw?

[Netskipper]

So just in case, and hoping it won't, happen to my MBA, to the dry cabinet it will go along with the cameras and lenses. :-)

Pwede rin ba ibilad sa araw?

Dry cabinet is ok. I guess its a matter of availability thats why rice was used.

Bilad sa araw? I'd advice against it. Baka umulan hehe

[natsgo]

Just the other night my 4 year old daughter spilled water on our 2006 MacBook white.
I quickly held the power button while simultaneously yanking off the magsafe plug.
I then took out the battery and removed the top case (thanks ifixit.com).

The left side of the logic board was wet, I carefully used cotton buds to dry it out as best as I can.
I then used a hair dryer for 1-2 minutes on the logic board and the keyboard.

Finally, I shoved everything inside my dry cabinet.

When I woke up the next day, the RH level was already acceptable so I put the MacBook back together.

Voila! It still works!

Now I am looking for a silicon keyboard protector for it...